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glinden writes "BBC News is reporting that Israel is now deploying microdrone spy planes. These planes have a wingspan of 13 inches (33 cm), can be carried in a backpack, can be launched by a single soldier, and can even fly through windows. The next step in the drone wars?"

I have to agree that it sounds rather fishy. What happens if the window is in a hallway? They should make a helocopter one instead of a fixed-wing one. That way it could hover and enter windows, buildings, etc. Of course maybe it's hard to RC the collective as I think it's called?

Been done. The version at this link...
Link [hobby-lobby.com]
Comes with fixed pitch, but can be upgraded to full collective (he's talking about collective pitch on a helicopter blade, not the Borg you Star Trek watching clod.) These things can do wild aerobatics, inverted flight, whatever you want. Putting a GPS receiver on it might be a bit of a challenge, as they will hardly lift anything...I imagine they could carry a grenade, too though.

I got one of them... an extremely cool toy! But even with a beefed-up motor and battery pack, the range will be very limited and power will certainly not be sufficient to carry a serious explosive device.

The only ones you'll terrorise with this thing is your cats! Mine hate it, they hide when I fly it indoors:)

It would be even cooler if you could make them fly through windows and drop stink bombs. I can think of many times this would have been cool to have when I was 15.

From the picture, it doesn't appear that the drone could have much, if any, payload. But if it does (or a later, slightly larger generation could), does anyone doubt that Israel hasn't already thought using these to carry tear gas or another irritant in order to clear buildings?

I'd imagine this would be pretty simple without adding too much weight - set it up like a claymore, with a plastic/ball bearing lattice and a small amount of c4. They could even shape the charge so that the bearings came out the nose of the drone, limitting collatoral casualties and upping the kill probability. Very Bond-esque!

Maybe if it's cheap and disposable enough, they could just be transmitting the pictures back to a remote location. Then if the plane did crash or get captured, they would still have the data they were looking for. Cheap and disposable would be the best solution for these micro planes.

There is, technically speaking, no moral or ethical reason why human bombs (AKA suicide bombers) are a Bad Thing[tm]. Remember, we saw an instance of this in WWII with the Japanese Kamikaze.

It is usually going to be easier to breach defenses one-way than to go in, hit the enemy, and leave. Arriving with the intent of blowing up frees you to focus on the task rather than be distracted by 'misguided' attempts to survive the execution of it.

Where it gets less great is when you do one of two things:1. Not clearly identify yourself as a hostile target, causing the other side to naturally suspect EVEYRONE on your side and probably qualifying you as an unlawful combatant (the Law of Armed Conflict [about.com] requires distinctive markings); or (much more seriously)2. Target civilians, which is when you become not just a weapon, but a terrorist weapon.

There's no fundamental difference between a Palestinian wearing a uniform and a bomb blowing themselves up with a bunch of soldiers and, say, a US soldier storming a Japanese pillbox with a grenade knowing he's going to die. The issue is whether or not he's clearly marked and, more importantly, whether he's attacking soldiers on duty or civilians.

I wonder in which category you would put a clearly marked Tomahawk missile hurling at 550 MPH and traveling at a very low altitude so that noone sees it coming. And how about all the American ex-military "civilians" stationed in Saudi Arabia to protect the House of Saud? Would you qualify those guys as terrorists if their participation went above and beyond training, but if they were actually found to have participated in black ops and unofficial clean-up operations within Saudi Arabia?

And the US was morally superior, you say? In WWII the US used flamethrowers to incinerate 50 teenage student nurses in a cave on Iwo Jima when they refused to come out. In Vietnam Wiliam Calley ordered the execution of 350 women, children and elderly at My Lai. More than 20% of the victims were under the age of 5. The US killed more civilians in the fire-bombing of Dresden (an open city) than the Japanese killed in Nanking by an order of magnitude. Did this make the US and all its soldiers amoral? No. N

Which is more realistic: That the world's 4th largest nuclear power (Israel) will be wiped off the map, or that the nation that it occupies, which has almost 80% of its land officially taken, and has siezed for settlements and security buffers 75% of the rest, and has half its populaton with chronic malnutrition will be wiped off the map?

Think about it for a second. Who is taking whose land? I'm not talking about the past: I'm talking about the present.

You get the camera view from the nose of a cruise missile as it flies through one of Saddam's bunkers, showing lots of Iraqi soldiers scrambling out of the way as the missile negotiates hallways, doors, stairwells, bathrooms and then flies out a window and explodes in a school down the street.

Sorry, I have to disagree with this one. It's a new century and we can no longer pretend that murder is not murder by arbitrarily classifing the victims as acceptable military targets. There will never be world peace until solders accept that what they do is murder. I no longer accept that there is any difference between civilian murder and military murder. There are other ways of dealing with political situations; it's just that murder is the usually t

Pick up the latest RC mags and you'll see some very similar devices. Flight times are shorter, but they're improving all the time. Micro-servos and stronger, lighter pushrods are allowing fine control with even the smallest planes.Wind is definitely a problem with these devices, but if you had a swarm of them and some skilled pilots you could do a lot of damage via intelligence collection or bomb/poison attack.

Real benefit would come to rescue and disaster recovery units if these babies could be controlled (or at least monitored) via satellite--or even something more remote than a laptop within 5K as the article suggests.

Imagine what could be done in a remote disaster situation in any region--even a metropolitan area--just by being able to fly low and into and around hard-to-reach areas.

Sure, while in this instance it's being used by soldiers, your point about rescue units, etc. is an idea I hope takes hold

While I'm postive this will lead to heated debate, flames and trolls regarding the
situation in Palestine. I think it's very clever and resourceful to develop inexpensive
methods of reconnaissance. But as these things buzz around they'd be hard to overlook.
Maybe the next time the Israeli Army assasinates a
palistinian they can do it with a poison needle or dart on one of these things
instead of firing air-to-ground missiles. What's to stop the palestinians from doing likewise?

Preferably they'd eliminate the need for such things by reigning in their own
hardline elements demands and work toward peace.

Hey if you gave the Palestinians billions of US$ a year in military aid maybe they would.

This weapon, as well as Israel's famous gun (Uzi), and their tanks are of their own design.

Palestinians got a lot more than "military aid" in the past -- they got entire armies fighting for -- so it was claimed -- their cause. Israel's very existence hung on a hair against _hundreds_ of Egyptian and Syrian tanks.

Finally, the world certainly gives to Palestinians too -- food, medicine, buildings. Soviet Union and A

Dear lord. People accuse of Sharon of being cruel, but nothing outmatches the sheer barbarism of terrorist groups. At least Sharon tries to attack military targets, and doesn't ask 14 years old to blow themselves to pieces by saying they'll go to heaven when they do.

I don't believe that the Palestinians' tactic of murdering civilians is ever justified in any circumstance, and in general I find myself to the right of the people I know on this subject; I would call myself "pro-Israel." Nevertheless, the basic fact is that Israel is the occupier, "Palestine" is the occupied. Even Ariel Sharon has acknowledged this. They don't call them "the occupied terroritories" for nothing. I daresay the Israelis would be more than happy to sign a peace treaty right now, considerin

the basic fact is that Israel is the occupier, "Palestine" is the occupied.

According to international law (which I loathe to cite), it is not occupied by Israel. The following was reported in Arutz-7 on March 18:

"Judea, Samaria and Gaza are not 'occupied territories' according to international law due to the fact that they were not taken from any foreign sovereign," says Law Professor Talia Einhorn, a senior member of the research faculty at Tel Aviv University and a Law professor at the Shaarei Mishpat

You are so terribly uninformed. The area occupied by Israel was largely unoccupied before the late 1800s and early 1900s when Jewish settlers started moving into the area. In the beginning they were quite popular - despite the long-lasting anti-semitism of many Muslims they brought industry and prosperity to the area. Moreso, they let the Arabs in the area be full citizens in Israel when it formed - Israel is currently the only democracy in the area. Ironically the Arab in the area have more political freedom in Israel than in the surrounding countries. Further, modern Israel is secular - there are many Jews, but the political structure isn't religious unlike in most of the surrounding countries.

When Israel was formed it was the largest single group of Jews in the world and its creation was merely a matter of the British setting borders in the area to best represent the political/racial groups. Most of the Arab countries in the area have no more historical right than Israel does.

Then consider the tactics. The Palestinians intentionally target civilians. The israelis intentionally target known terrorists, often passing up a chance at assasinating them until they're not surrounded by civilians. The Muslims intentionally try to kill the innocent - the Israelis do so only by accident.

Israel has gone out of their way to be fair, even going so far as to give back land taken during a defensive war. Ask yourself what any other country would do if in the process of defending itself in a war it pushed the enemy back and captured land. Would they give it back later, or keep it as just spoils of war? There's very little historical precedent for giving territory back to the agressors, yet Israel did this. The countries surrounding them easily have enough territory to take in the Palestinians and this has been proposed by people looking for peaceful solutions for years, but the Palestinians are left where they are. It just goes to show that the Muslims in the area aren't united by the fight for Palestinian freedom, they're united by religious hatred for Jews and the Palestinians are being used as pawns.

One group is secular, democratic, multi-racial, and targets military targets. The other group is religious, a theocracy (in practice, not on paper), racist, homophobic, etc, and intentionally targets civilians. Who really is the bad guy in this scenario?

I don't want to start too much of a flame war, but I think that there is a lot of myths flying around regarding Israel. I will restrain myself from ranting, but want to steer your attention to this website [us-israel.org] [www.us-israel.org] full of facts, WITH SOURCES. Take some time and become educated.

Survival kit contents check. In them you'll find: one.45 caliber automatic; two boxes of ammunition; four days concentrated emergency raisons; one drug issue containing: antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills; one miniature combination Russian phrase book and bible; one hundred dollars in rubles; one hundred dollars in gold; nine packs of chewing gum; one issue of prophylactics; three lipsticks; three pair a nylon stockings. Ten 30mm propulsion-grade rubber bands. Shoot, a fellah could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.

This is a spy plane, however. So maybe it will be used for intelligence to prevent violence. Or perhaps it will be used for intelligence to make waging war more effective.

The two tend to be linked at the hip. There is considerable interest in the military to develop means of preventing civilian casualties or collateral damage. And it's not just as simple as them not wanting to 'waste' ammunition on noncombatants, they really do want to avoid civilian casualties. First, military people aren't the psychotic, evil madman you see in the movies. Believe it or not, they have children too so they want to try to prevent the deaths of innocents in far away lands. Second, even if they didn't personally care about civilian deaths, the American people would and our allies most certainly would. The type of WWII war where massive civilian casualties are accepted so long as you kill lots of enemy combatants are long gone. Third, increased intelligence will help you refine a priori assumptions you made about the enemy's tactics. If you are planning on destroying a building you believe to be an enemy command center but then receive intelligence that it's actually a homeless shelter, that's more valuable than just noting that it's a non-target. It tells you that you really don't know where the hell the command center really is! And it also makes you pause and question the quality of the pre-battle intelligence that labeled it as enemy headquarters.

Spy planes are here to stay and they will play a more important role in the conflicts to come. And I don't think you can separate their capabilities into "prevent violence" and "enable violence" bins. Those two qualities tend to be one and the same.

And it's not just as simple as them not wanting to 'waste' ammunition on noncombatants, they really do want to avoid civilian casualties. First, military people aren't the psychotic, evil madman you see in the movies. Believe it or not, they have children too so they want to try to prevent the deaths of innocents in far away lands. Second, even if they didn't personally care about civilian deaths, the American people would and our allies most certainly would.

That is the same retarded logic used in banning non-lethal, although permanent injury causing weapons like laser dazzler's and other high-tech weaponry. If you're sending your sons and daughters into combat, which would you rather have: a son or daughter back home safe, albeit blind or potentially crippled for life, or one in a body bag?

And now you people complain about UAV's doing a soldier's dirty work for them? Why the fixation on sending real, live people into combat when the future wars can be waged o

NATO soldiers are not allowed to use shotguns, hollowpoint bullets, or anti-personnel lasers, because, perversely, they might leave the target alive. The 5.56mm rounds fired from an M16 are required to be jacketed to reduce their chance of tearing off an arm or leg, making nonlethal injuries more treatable.

Um, wrong.

First, shotguns *are* currently used by military security patrols. They're not used by field troops because of the extremely short range. In WWI, they were used in trench warfare.

Second, hollowpoints are *more* destructive, not less. Solid rounds tend to punch through, damaging only those things directly in path, and many times imparting only a fraction of their energy into the target. Hollow points #1 expand to a wider path, and #2 impart more of their energy (usually all of it) into the target, due to the greater surface area. This causes far greater damage.

As for 5.56 mm rounds being required to be jacketed, actually, *all* small-arms rounds are required to be jacketed, from long before the 5.56 was even on the drawing board. (Pre-dates the Geneva convention.) The 5.56mm is most dangerous due to the incredible *velocity* (up to 3,200fps) it carries. When hitting a solid body, a hypersonic shock wave follows the projectile, creating damage far removed from the actual path of the projectile. A hit in the thigh has been known to cause thrombosis of the major arteries well up into the abdomen and chest. (Fluids transmit shock waves *very* efficiently.) Also, that same hit, in the meat of the thigh, where the projectile itself never impacted the bone, can easily pulverize the femur, from the shock waves alone.

The last thing I want to see is either of those two groups become more efficient killers.

You are wrong on two counts. First, the precise killing is a better killing, because a precise weapon reduces collateral damage -- the children, with which Rantissi and the like surround themselves in public suddenly become exposed to less risk.

Likewise Baghdad is still standing -- unlike some major German cities shortly after WWII -- because the precision of the bombing improved so much.

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity... In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palesti

Ah, yes. From the people who invented the Uzi, an indiscriminate killing machine- the closest you can get to the gun equivalent of a nuclear weapon- you don't pick your targets with an Uzi, you pick your areas.

Man, you're an idiot. Israel didn't invent automatic weapons. By any measure, the Heckler & Koch MP5 is a better submachine gun than the Uzi, and that was invented by the peace-loving Swiss.

Gun-equivalent to a nuke? I'm sure the vulcan cannons are much more powerful than an uzi.

It's be nice if people stopped and remembered a few basic facts. #1, Palestinians were there first.

No, they weren't. Jews have been there for many thousands of years. Arabs didn't migrate out of Arabia until recently (1600 years or so).

#2, Palestinians have rocks; Israelis have gunship helicopters, fighter jets, tanks, RPGs, and nuclear weapons; compare the body counts from the palestinian bombings with the multiple retaliation strikes and note that the ratio is just a tad imbalanced.

The Israelis have a well trained military. The Palestinians do not. And even when other Arab nations with real militaries attacked Israel in the many Arab-Israeli wars, the Arabs got their asses kicked, with far more Arab casulties than Israelis.

#3, you see terrorists- I see people fenced into ghetto prisons, whose basic resources(such as water) have been redirected out of the land they've been squeezed into, so desperate to protect their homes they're willing to strap bombs to themselves because they have no other means left to defend themselves.

Terrorists are those who delibrately attack civilians. If the shoe fits, wear it.

Whereas most Palestinians would probably be happy to have their land back and move on to living- Israel won't be satisfied until they've pushed Palestinians completely out of the way, or exterminated them.

Riiight. Hamas refuses to live in peace with Israel under any circumstances. Don't believe me, go ask Hamas.

They're doing a damn fine job at both. They've stripped land, resources, and property to satisfy the needs of their own population, who are somehow better than the people that were there already.

Riiight. If the best military in the middle east wanted to exterminate the Palestinians, there would be millions of dead Palestinians next month, and the conflict would be over. But they don't, because that isn't the Israeli goal. You forget that when the UN created the modern state of Israel, it also created a Palestinian state. THIS WAS UNACCEPTABLE TO THE ARABS, AND THEY CHOSE THE PATH OF WAR. And lost.

Anyone with TechTV knows that these things have been around for quite some time (employed by the U.S. army). They say that they don't carry destructive payloads, just cameras and the like. The real question is, did they develop these models themselves or buy them from a U.S. company?

did they develop these models themselves or buy them from a U.S. company?

The US probably paid for them indirectly: US aid package --> Israel --> purchase Mini-spy planse from US company (of which the people who approve the aid packages probably have lots of money invested).;)

Although personal assassination drones could be said to already exist in the form of the Predator, the picture I saw accompanying the BBC article looks much more like a remote-control prop-plane than a personal assassination platform. For one thing, it looks too small to carry any particularly leathal weaponry. (maybe, maybe you could attach a.22 pistol underneath it, I can't think of anything else)

The next issue is, can these fly fast enough to survive against a shotgun? And if so, how long before politicians/famous people are targetted with these? ("these" - the hypothetical assassination drones that could be built today, not the UAV mentioned in the article)

There are far more efficient and for lack of a better word, lighter, ways of killing someone than a gun. For instance, poison darts, cyanide spray, and lethal injection are just a few examples off the top of my head (yeah, I know, I'm sick).

the remote cockroach that they had here [imdb.com]. Of course, it ended up squashed by a shoe, but before that it got critical intel out. Just imagine a battlefield where you can't trust that the spiders and snakes, or arctic hares aren't working for the other guys!

Ever since the dawn of conflict it hasn't been how many men you put on the battlefield as much as what's in their hand as they go out. Be it the advent of stronger alloys to make better swords, or to have the robots do the more dangerous scouting missions.

This will only escalate exponentially untill perhaps man withdrawels his fragile body from war altogether?

How long before somebody loads one of these with explosives and turns it into a guided grenade? It could be useful as a weapon against a small target of opportunity that doesn't merit a bomb run or cruise missile strike, as well as keeping the soldiers out of immediate harm's way.

1. Payload. This small, and you can't really carry a lot of weight, and you can only make an effective explosive so small. A typical grenade is about a pound or so. Of course, you could make the a/c body out of the explosive, and send it on a one way trip...;)2. Jamming. It's one thing to lose control of a camera toting aircraft, quite another to have your flying grenade turn around and get you. Armed Predators can cary much better antijam electronics, because they are biggger.
3. Speed. See it coming, and

I heard about this technology back in 1999, I had done a report on the unexposed spy technology of the United States. Those little buggers that they were holding in the picture closely resemble a prototype picture that I had found of the exact same kind of idea, being developed by US forces at that time.

The wingspan was similar (about 15 inches, if I remember correctly), and could be controlled remotely. A color video camera and microphone on the "plane" would record any needed information.

Released Story:On display at the Tel Aviv conference were the Birdy and the Spy There mini-drones and two micro-drones, the Mosquito and the Mosquito 1.5. The models were developed by Israel Aircraft Industries' (IAI) engineering division.

The REAL Story:"Yeah I'll take one of those balsa kits, that motor you showed me, a radio, and some glue. Oh and what sort of paint colors are availble?"

I still wonder a bit at how much money goes into these things, as well as man hours. I can see their uses as survelliance, but would those resources be better used elsewhere?... a lot of resources would be better used if people didn't suck and have to fight amongst themselves all of the time, though. So, in that case, whats a little plane?

I'd like to own one, personally, but I just love playing with rockets and planes.

As someone mentioned before, using these devices for rescue personel would be very cool

As an avid R/C pilot for many years. I don't think using an aircraft with a 13 inch wingspan is going to do much good. These planes are extremely suceptable to wind. I have a 1/2a pilon racer with a 24" wingspan and an.049 engine. It can only be flown when the wind is less than 15 mph. In a place where mountains, hills and thermals abound I doubt their plane will be much use.

Btw the 1/2a racer has been clocked at over 90 mph. These things scream.

There are slightly larger, but similar in concept, planes available in hobby shops. Such as this Firebird II [hobbytron.net].

Based on my experience flying that, I'm skeptical about a few things:- Flying conditions: The Firebird is quite a bit larger than that plane, but any winds above 5-10MPH or so make it difficult to control. That little plane would get tossed around even easier.- Duration: One hour flight time would be excellent, but with something so tiny I'm not sure how they pack that much battery power. My firebird is lucy to get 10 minutes of flying time before a recharge.- Flying through windows? - That seems unlikely with one of these units. That level of accuracy is very difficult, and at the speeds you need to keep it flying, you would not have much time to maneuver this thing. Also, in the article they describe plotting a destination on a map - like a GPS controlled craft. How the hell would you fly through windows in that scenario.

Anyway, the hobby store variety of these things are a blast.. I highly recommend picking a couple up ( a couple because you're sure to crater it several times when first learning ).

Russians use something like this, too, against Chechen insurgents (calling them "rebels" is fundamentally wrong). Their drone is called "Pchela" it's quite a bit bigger and requires at least two soldiers to launch (from what I've seen on TV).

Here's some info:A Pchela (remotely piloted reconnaissance drone that provides television surveillance of ground targets) weighs 130 kilograms (loaded), has an operational range of 110 to 150 kilometers, can fly at altitudes ranging from 100 meters to 3 kilometers, and cruises at speeds from 11- to 150 kilometers an hour. Combat-recorded range: 55 kilometers. Its flight endurance is 2 hours (it needs 20 liters of gasoline for this). Its power plant is piston plus two solid rockets takeoff boosters (power at 32hp). Onboard of the Russian drone are a video camera, a still camera, a mapping camera, and a secure radio. It uses a parachute for landing. Pchela is probably equal in capability to many Western UAV in the same class. However, it is a slower, tactical unmanned aerial vehicle than, for example, the Russian the 800-kilometer-per-hour Reis UAV.

It is odd to read people think this will reduce the number of casualties, especially "collateral damage".

This is not unlike some of the security discussions we've had here. Force people to have 4 passwords, and they'll write them on sticky-notes besides their screen, reducing security. Passwords are _supposed_ to make systems safer, but abuse them and they are counter-productive.

Drone technologies will completely change the strategy of conflict. One month before 9/11, a colleague and I predicted rc planes would be used against the White House. Ok, so we were off. But think about it: if the Israelis can use this, why couldn't the "terrorist" Palestinians? Imagine for a second what an rc plane/helicopter could do with non-conventional means...

Assymetrical warfare is used because one side has no chance at symmetrical -conventional- warfare. As this reinforces "full-spectrum dominance", it only increases the risk of terrorist attack.

I hope such drones are only used for reconnaissance, and not to carry out direct assassinations, causing another escalation.

In the long-term, we will need to make our conflict resolution systems more robust, so they don't degenerate so fast and with such bloody consequences. Another interesting thing to note is as war becomes more capital intensive, we can expect the rise of Conscientious Objection to Military Taxation [members.shaw.ca]